Defenders of the Realm

The game was just for fun. Until the monsters became real.

In 1986, four twelve-year-old boys huddled around a Formica kitchen table in suburban Silicon Valley, rolling dice and battling imaginary monsters as the Defenders of the Realm. Dennis, Artie, Peter, and Josh were inseparable, bound together by their shared love of the roleplaying game Golden Sword, microwave snacks, and the unshakable conviction that they could conquer any evil. Then they grew up. The dice were put away. The friends...